Live Prog-rock is Dying

I must confess that in my older years I don't get out to see bands live as much as I used to.  I've missed more than a few good ones unfortunately.  When I do manage to make it to a prog band show there's usually a decent crow attending. 

My support for prog artists these days comes in the form of buying their CDs.  Illegal downloading is out of the question for me not just for moral reasons but because if I like an artist I've absolutely got to have a hard copy.  Just look at my collection displayed in my signature:

Shakespeare wrote: Because you can't find the obscure bands to download!!!! (Only a bit of a lie...)

A lot of a lie -- rather, I bet there's practically nothing that I myself couldn't find, not that it wouldn't be available elsewhere.

And downloads aren't the scapegoat we'd all like them to be, since downloaders buy more CDs than those who do not download.

Live gigs will have to be the bread and butter of the industry, as they were prior to recorded music (and they remained so until relatively recently). Composers and symphonies make their money almost exclusively from live performances. Of course, they also don't have the problem of being painfully loud like many shows these days. I've been considering going to one of those shows in April with Symphony X, Epica, and Into Eternity. The question, though, is whether I'll be able to deal with the noise.

Edited by Gamemako - January 26 2008 at 23:55

I'm just not all that interested in live music, unfortunately. None of the gigs I have ever been to compare to the studio, but then I suppose they're never going to.

I have always been a fan of attending the lesser know / local up and coming acts, and thoroughly enjoy the more personally homely environment of the more compact venues. Also the intermingling with the actually artist is a great experience. I remember standing next to Mat Chalk (psycroptic) while watching Destroyer 666, when I was fledgling young chap of 16. These days I find myself deterred from the grandstand attractions; last year I refused to attend the Tool concert here in Aus because of the crowds, despite them being my favourite band. I'm ashamed to admit I missed our improvisational festival this year up in Sydney though this was through no wont of my own.  I will be spending much time overseas this year and will be trying to coincide my stays with several concerts. 

I actually tend to prefer live music. Even if the sound quality isn't as good as in the studio, most good bands will have an energy present in the live music that a studio recording can't capture, and the music live is more powerful, intense, and moving. Again, there are some bands that can't do this, especially in the pop world where they lip sync and it is more about looks than the music (my sisters have seen Britney Spears and Hannah Montana, so I've gotten to hear all about those, but luckily one sister stopped liking Britney Spears afterwards because she was so bad live with the lip syncing and such).
That energy factor is why a miracle needs to happen and VdGG has to come to America this summer. I've heard live recordings of them, and even when they're not on the top of their game they are just so intense.

By the way, I go to a lot of local concerts and bigger ones when I can afford them, but I can't afford 65 dollars to see Rush all the time.

darqDean wrote: This is a long rant, I make no apologies...   Playing live once was the life-blood of music. Now it is dying, and from the responses in this thread http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=40091&PN=1 - now I see why   Playing live is where all lesser known bands make their money (the piffling trifle that it is). No one can make a living by just selling a few thousand CD�s on the internet (especially when a lot of their stuff is downloaded illegally) � bands have to tour, not just to promote their latest release, but to sell merchandise - that is also where they get their fan-base from, not from radio plays and chart positions, reviews on websites or articles in glossy magazines.   For unsigned acts MySpace is now such a gargantuan mess and over-run with signed and unsigned bands all vying for a small market share, so not even that is a valid means of self-promotion anymore. The situation for unsigned and self-financed acts is even worse � it is impossible to get a support slot on a major tour if you are unsigned � so they end up playing grotty little clubs and they rarely see anything from the door money (which generally is split between the club and the promoter to �cover costs�) � all they can hope for is to sell a few home-made demo CD�s and the occasional T-shirt then pray that a bigger promoter will see them and put them on a bigger bill, or perhaps some mythical A&R person will be in the audience and sign them up (that never happens).   The problem all live music faces is apathy � and I�ll put my hand up to this � I should have gone to see Tinyfish earlier this month, (http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=39752), but I didn�t want to drive the 25 miles into South London to get there � and in the cold light of day that is a pathetic excuse. I haven�t asked Chopper how many people were at the gig � but the Peel is a small venue � I doubt if more than 200 people were present, 100 makes it look full � I�ve been to gigs where 20 people bothered to turn up and that is a very sad state of affairs.   These lesser known bands are the big groups of tomorrow.   So get off your backsides and go see a band play live � buy their CD, buy their T-shirts and badges, keep the genre alive at the grass-roots � even if it�s only once a month � you never know perhaps you�ll discover the next Dream Theater, Yes, Gentle Giant or Tool playing in a small venue in your home town. back in the day that's were they all started.

darqDean wrote: ^ The Enid are another band who had that intensity on stage that they couldn't recreate on record (even their live albums ). I saw then on numerous occasions towards the back-end of the 70s and was blown away by what the produced on stage, and by the way they could capture the audience attention, yet they never had that effect on album.

maybe that explains why i didn't really care for the stuff I had heard.

Really? I think my tolerance of music I only *sort* of like becomes improved when I'm listening live. It's much easier to appreciate the efforts the band are undertaking and the chorus moments are always so much more infectious. Of course, you'll rarely sound the same way live you do on stage, but it's an event to be appreciated separately from all that.

I'm working towards having a little free money to spend every month, and when I get to that point I think I'll try and support prog bands in general, by watching their shows, even if it's the bloody Flower Kings. =)

Dominic wrote: Live music is boring & the quality sucks. I have to stand up for a long period of time; all those stupid instruments are turned up and get in the way of Steve Wilson's voice, which never sounds as good as on my MP3 player...

How is it boring? Especially when you're mentioning a band like PT, who I think is pretty intense live and the visual show is amazing. Not only that, but the intimacy of having the band right there is one of the most powerful feelings.
Plus, PT has some of the best live sound quality I've heard, Steven Wilson is quite the perfectionist when it comes to audio quality.
Also, I doubt the quality is that good on your mp3 player anyway, compressed files suck. Another reason CDs are better than downloading.

The problem I have with CDs is their ridiculous prices, so now instead of just downloading music I've been buying used records on vinyl for less than 10 bucks a pop (sometimes just 50 cents or a dollar). Does this erase any moral problems I might have? I don't know; I'm getting a much cooler package than I would get from downloading but the artist still isn't seeing any of it, just the record store.

Or for example, IQ's Dark Matter was just released on vinyl. I'd love to get it but it will cost 35 dollars. That's very difficult for me to justify. I was hoping for a 20-25 dollar price tag but they overshot that. But Comus' First Utterance new vinyl for 18 dollars? Hell yeah.


Edited by KeleCableII - January 28 2008 at 21:31